November 2024
Interview With Ocean C Poet
By Shaunte Martin
“In my animated world justice would prevail.
Acceptance and truth would live strong.”
– Ocean C Poet, “My Animated World”
Shaunte Martin: Hey my name is Shaunte Martin. I’m interviewing Ocean here and I’m going to ask some questions. My advocacy experience is that I’m an Inclusion Associate and I love to do self-advocacy with ACT. I do a lot of stuff in the community and I enjoy doing stuff with people with disabilities and without people with disabilities in the community. We’re here because Ocean is a poet and he does stuff with self-advocacy in the communities and stuff like that and believes in disabilities and stuff like that. That’s why we’re here!
I’m happy to finally meet you, to get to know you better, and ask you some interview questions, and see how things are going with you. My first question is: Where did you live and where did you grow up?
Ocean C Poet: I am originally from Houston, Texas. I came here to Minnesota in 1999 after somebody read a story I wrote in the magazine, and somebody told me that Minnesota was a great place for me to venture creatively. So I came out here to visit, and I fell in love with the weather. Texas is too hot. So that’s how I ended up here.
SM: What is the best art piece that you have written or read?
OP: Basically any of my books. I’m a graphic artist and I’m also an artist where I use acrylics and all painting. I also like books.
SM: What made you decide to do art? When did you start painting? What was your vision?
OP: I would have to say my first love was music. When I was young, my mother got tired of me beating on the pots and pans, so she bought me my first drum set. Ever since then, I’ve been playing the drums in band in high school. I still have an African drum here that I play sometimes too. I think it was 2004, I was at the Interact Center for five years. I started there painting acrylic – they showed me the ropes on how to do that situation. But once they find out I play the drums, they put me on the performance part. So I started playing music on stage when they have the showcase and all that.
Most of my paintings have been sold whenever they have an exhibit around the Twin Cities. My vision in painting – I like the liveliness of oils. Right now I’ve already created about eight paintings. Basically three are completed, and the rest I’m taking my time to finish. My artwork right now is at the Mill City Museum. It’ll be there until January with the other artists. It’s called the Art of Disability Justice Now, right now at the Mill City Museum. My piece is up there so I try to tell everyone to go out and give us some support.
I also just completed my tenth book. This is my second graphic novel, and it’s called Love Is Love. It’s a transgender male love story. The release date is going to be December 12. My vision is to basically show them a better way to live. Advocating for yourself, and if you want to be the change you want to see in the world, you got to show it. So I do that in my work to show that, hey, we can make a difference by doing this, and that’s what I like to have my work show.
I’m happy to get back in the Cow Tipping classes again because they help me so much when it comes to my writing. It keeps me writing and it helps me figure out different things and how to be. It helped me to complete the second book. I think it’s very important when you’re writing to take a break and learn a little more. By the time you get back to that story, you’re going to see a whole different view. Cow Tipping classes helped me a lot, their vision and what they teach.
SM: It’s really cool, your art just shows who you are, and you’re just not afraid of who you are as a self-advocate as well.
OP: Yeah, and I’m looking forward to doing more self-advocacy. I’m right now waiting for a grant to see if I can do some teaching for people with disabilities. There are two grants that I applied for. The first grant is basically teaching a class online, but the second grant is for me to do a documentary film. So I’m working on that. I’m hoping that will come about, too.
SM: I see self-advocacy as standing up for yourself, believing in yourself, not giving up, and saying what you wanted in your life and in the disability community. How long have you done self-advocacy and when did you start doing self-advocacy and how is that life experience?
OP: I started with the Minnesota Arc. I’ve been with them for about six years now. In the beginning, I was there and I learned some things. It wasn’t until later, when I started experiencing things and lot of issues going on in my life, and I really started paying attention to what it meant to be a self-advocate, to be able to advocate for yourself. It really opened my eyes to the work that those that came before us have done to help us move forward. I know we still have a long way to go, but I’m glad that I’ve been given the opportunity to be in that fight too. And there’s so much that I pay attention to now, especially when it comes to people with disabilities.
I’m also self-advocating with the Rainbow Support Group – that’s for people with disabilities who are part of the LGBTQ community. I’ve learned a lot researching stuff that’s happened in the past. I’m also right now going to meetings at the mayor’s advising committee. I like being part of an organization and being able to change laws, being able to put the word out, being able to know that disability rights are human rights. That’s important for people to know and give us some attention here because we are human too. That’s really important to me to continue this fight.
Every day I’m on social media and I’m putting different things out, especially when it comes to advocating for people with disabilities, advocating for people of color, and also advocating for people what are part of the LGBTQ community because I am a multi-racial transgender male. So for me, self-advocacy, I look forward to hopefully doing for quite some time.
SM: That’s really good to know. And to know that people with disabilities support the LGBT community – I do as well, I support the LGBT community as well.
OP: It’s important that we all support each other. When I was younger, my family didn’t really speak about what’s going with your life. It didn’t happen like that in Texas. But for me to learn this, and see all this right now, it has opened my eyes. My disability is that I have hearing loss in both of my ears, I have a traumatic brain injury, and I also have AS – I’m taking injections now, but without it, the stiffness in my body makes it hard for me to move and walk. But that’s not going to stop me from letting my voice be heard. And hopefully to help other peoples’ voices be heard through art and poetry, or any situation I can get into to help.
